Study of plasma - based stack gases cleaning technology to remove SOX and NOX emission from coal-fired power plants in Turkey

Abstract

Environmental problems, which caused by the increased energy demands, have become a serious problem in Turkey. Air and environmental pollutants such as the SOx (SO2, SO3) and NOx (NO, NO2) generated mainly by burning fossil fuels, especially coal with high sulfur contents turn ultimately into sulfuric/sulfurous acid and nitric/nitrous acid in the atmosphere. This acids affect forests, agricultural fields and flora by acidifying the soil and affects fish by acidifying land-borne water. Therefore, Turkey is seeking to install Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD or deSOx) technology on all newly commissioned coal fired thermal power plants units and to retrofit onto older units to reach introduced emission limits. In this study, both the current energy consumption and production and emission of these gases in Turkey is reviewed and plasma-based stack gas cleaning technologies such as electron beam flue gas treatment (e-beam FGT) and pulsed corona discharge FGT (pulsed CD-FGT) are compared with preferred limestone/gypsum wet-scrubbing (L/G-FGD) technology and evaluated for some coal fired power plants.